To Rent? or To Own?...that is the question.

Have you ever played the board game Life?
To be declared the winner one must attain the highest amount of income and assets at the end of the game. There are all sorts of career, family, and property options. At one point you can also trade the income of another player for your own. I had decided to be a teacher with no income, so I quickly opted to trade incomes when given the chance. My nephew, who is seven years old, had a steady income as a star athlete of $50,000 a year. Unfortunately, he chose to purchase a mansion with bank loans and was broke most of the game. In the end, he came out on top with a paid off mansion, a star career, and the most money in his personal bank. He cheered for himself, of course.

I remember playing this game as a kid, so I know it has been around a long time. Who invented this game, I wonder? It does seem eerily close to the American road to "success."
If we strive for the best car, biggest house, and latest technological gadget to fill the holes in our lives, then what happens when we attain all these things? In most cases, I believe we find the next thing to covet without much thought as to what we are really missing.

I grew up in an affluent suburb of Dallas, Texas. I was fed value messages from a young age that were tied to material possessions and status. The sinking pit of consumerism is alive and well in the suburbs of many major U.S. cities.

While I have spent many years bitter toward the machine that is consumerism, I have recently soften. For instance, without the consumers many jobs would be eliminated. My brothers both work for companies that rely on consumers to fuel their business. In turn the companies that many of us work for employ numerous other smaller industry players to assist in their success. All of this leads to jobs.

There are two central arguments against our consumer-based society. The first is the perceived unfair income slant that claims the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The second issue sparks debate on the necessity of American's acquisition of excessive material goods.

I do not know many people that would argue that these are, in fact, valid concerns. As Christians, however, the issue becomes how we are spending our time judging the choices of others. While many Americans may be building up their own personal vault of the riches of this world, others are living paycheck to paycheck. There is a middle ground, in fact, in America there is a very large middle class. Who are we to decide how much a person should get paid for a job we have no control over? What I mean is this- if we determine that athletes, for instance, are being paid far too much money to simply play a game, what credentials do we have to make this judgment call? Do I believe we pay athletes too much? Sure, but the obsession with it does not lead me to any greater peace about the condition of this world. The bottom line is that I can not determine the appropriate salaries for each person in the world because I am not God. I do not have that kind of control over the functions of this world. When I spend time being irritated by the systems of the earth I am simply tying myself to it. I am just as guilty of being sinful in my negative attitude as the wealthy family of four that spends $600,000 on a home.

Scripture teaches that before we suggest the removal of the dust in our brother's eye we should work on removing the plank in our own. (Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 6:40-43). Jesus calls what you're seeing (sin) in the life of someone else as simply a speck or dust. However, when rebuking the accuser he calls their sin a plank. Could it be that in addition to the dust or speck in our eyes, the same as our neighbor, we also have a much larger issue for the judgment we are passing? The self-righteous declaration of someone else's problems and sin looks even more poorly on us than on them.

In regards to how people attain their earthly wealth and what they choose to do with their finances I think we should follow Christ's example. First of all in loving our neighbors- even and sometimes especially the rich ones. The task of getting to know the Savior is much easier when you are desolate and at your wit's end than when you're the star of your game. There is a degree of desperate need that may be missing for someone who seems to have it all. These "rich people" are desperate for Christ's peace and salvation the same as any of the rest of us. They may have the income to indulge in more methods of filling their Jesus-shaped hole, but let that not detract from the reality of that hole existing. People need Jesus. Rich people, poor people, beautiful people, ugly people, homeless people, the people living behind the gates, educated people, uneducated people... they all have one amazingly beautiful thing in common- their need of a Savior.

Why do we spend so much time worried about who is renting and who is buying? The real question is how do we love people the way Jesus did? How do we look past the outfit and face paint and see the need of Christ in their hearts?